Heartless
by LSMunch
Summary: Now, when he comes up to remember, he sometimes brings a cup of tea, but always winding up with tears running down his face, sometimes pouring, it seems, from his once, and now again, heartless black eyes.


Disclaimer: Not mine.

He sits against the wall, unable to look out the window anymore. He tells himself it's because of the winds that blow at this height, but he knows that's not the reason. He knows it's never the reason. Perhaps long ago it was the reason, when he came here to forget. But now, now he comes to remember. He used to come and try and forget, sometimes with a bottle of Old Ogdens, sometimes without. But he always ended up with tears in his eyes, sometimes even running down his face to splash on his robes. Now, when he comes up to remember, he sometimes brings a cup of tea, but always winding up with tears running down his face, sometimes pouring, it seems, from his once, and now again, heartless black eyes.

He used to come here to get away from his dungeons and anything remotely Slytherin. To get away from everything he could that reminded him of the Dark Lord. He came here to try and forget his evils. To tell himself they were in the past and he was helping the Light now. To, sometimes, drink away the pain. He used to stand there, let the wind blow around him and blow things away. He tried to tell himself, so many times, that if he stood there long enough, it would blow away his past and he'd have a clean slate. He would no longer be the evil, greasy haired, biased, good for nothing Potions Master. He'd be Professor Snape, as Lupin is Professor Lupin and McGonagall is Professor McGonagall. Nothing else associated with his name.

Now, when he comes here, he rarely stands. Perhaps for a few moments before seeing the stars hurts too much and he looks away. Trys to forget while at the same time trying to remember. He remembers how she looked, how she dressed, how she smiled, how she smelled. But he can no longer remember how she sounded. Her laughter is forever gone from him. Her voice, so soft, so caring, so loving. Gone. Oh sure, things she said are still there, but not how they sounded when they came from her lips. And when he sits up there, in her old tower, he can almost hear her laughter in the wind. Almost hear her whisper in the leaves. But all he ever hears, is her crying. Out of all those wondrous nights they spent talking and laughing, only something so sad is left. Only the tears are left.

And as he hears her crying in the rain, he can only let his own tears come because he can't comfort her. He never could, not really. He never knew exactly what to do to calm her, to soothe her. Never knew how exactly to hold her. Never knew how to kiss it away. She would cry and he would flounder in her tears, trying to find some way to help her. Trying to find some way not to drown.

She'd eventually stop and look at him with puffy eyes later after she'd decided to come back to him. He'd hug her briefly and kiss her briefly and tell her, briefly, that he loved her. It had always been enough for her, but now, leaning against the cold stone wall of the tower, her tower, he isn't so sure it was.

Her old books and astronomy things are mostly gone. Sold or given away. Some things he kept though. Some things, he couldn't let go. Like her Muggle Shakespeare books. He could never understand her silly love for his work, but he'd grown oddly attached to it. Sometimes, when he comes up here, he'll bring one of them, thought there's only one sonnet he ever opens to. One that, if you were to drop the book, would open to that page. To that well worn, somewhat dirty page that holds his favorite. The one that holds words he'd come to memorize as he softly trails a finger down the side of the page, trying to remember her voice reading it to him.

But her voice never comes, no matter how hard he strains his ears and he wonders, as tears drip onto the page, how he's come to this. How he used to tell himself that love was for fools and fools would all die from it. Everyone was a fool, even he, now. He'd succumbed to it in the end. From the stress of the war, or because he was ready for it, he'll ever know, and he doesn't think he wants to. He's rather content to remember her, though he wishes she could be with him. He remembers the first time she caught him up here, in the days when he came to forget.

"_Severus, what are you doing here?" Her surprised voice asked him as she looked upon his dark form on the floor_

_"Thinking. Problem with that?"_

_"No, I was just wondering, as it happens to be my stairwell your perched upon."_

_"Well, now you know. Satisfied? May I be left alone now?"_

_"Yes, of course." She continued her way up the stairs and soon after that he left for his dungeons._

And as he sits here now, he can't help but picture her climbing these cold, hard stairs he sits upon and watch as she continues up to her rooms. He follows her with his eyes, wishing for what seems to be the millionth time that he had died, not her. She didn't deserve it. He did. He deserved death, torture, everything, but instead she was the one that suffered at the hands of the Dark Lord. And the Dark Lord had never suspected him of having loyalties elsewhere. Of that, he had made sure the Dark Lord would never know.

He had had something ready, if the Dark Lord ever figured it out. If the Dark Lord ever killed him and the last words he ever said to her were ever anything but loving, which chances held would be. But he'd never had to leave her the words he'd had prepared. Never had to give her the note that he thought he would have to hand over. And now, now he's the one without her. The one wishing, maybe even praying for her back. He's never prayed before, thoguht it below him and all that. But now, now it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

He looks out the window to her stars and wonders if there really is a God, if there really is a Heaven. He knows that if there is, she's there, looking down on him and that most of his past is in Hell, if such a place exists. He doubts it and knows that it is more fools talk. He's never though of it before. To him, there had never been a God, never been a place you go after death, except six feet under with a stone to mark where you lie. But now, his world had been turned around. Ever since he had fallen in love with her, his world had been upside down. For how could a beast ever learn to love?


End file.
